‘Treat every day during an election campaign like April Fool’s Day’

Speaking to agricultural students at Ballyhaise Agricultural College in Cavan, he encouraged the students to check what they’re reading online in relation to the two upcoming referendums.

However, with very few in the room registered to vote a bigger challenge facing the Commission could be getting young people on the electoral register.

Chair of the Electoral Commission Justice Marie Baker admitted it has “some work to do” and needs to convince people of the importance of voting.

She admitted she was disappointed with how few of the Ballyhaise students were registered to vote, but said she was not concerned about a lack of engagement in the upcoming referendum.

“What we're doing this time is learning what we need to do to persuade people to get out and registered. So I wouldn't say I'm concerned.

"I'm looking at it as a learning curve and I've been pleasantly surprised until now because I thought there was a very high, representation of people who were already registered or intended to register and intend to vote.

“I think the information is beginning to seep out and I don't think that's unusual, that people don't start engaging with the topic until quite close to the time and the debate is heating up a bit.”

O’Leary said that some of the turnout figures that have been used in the past aren't all that reliable, because the electoral register is not all that reliable, but work is underway to establish a single electoral database.

“People talk about the electoral register as if it's one thing. We have 28 separate electoral registers in this country, and they don't talk to each other.”

But it could be at least 2025, he said, before there is a referendum on whether Irish people living abroad could vote in Presidential elections.

“The Taoiseach said recently the time to have that referendum is during the Presidential election next time around, so that in 2025 in October of next year, when you're voting for a president you may also be voting in a referendum to give people living outside the State an opportunity to vote in presidential elections.

"That would give us seven years to develop an electoral register to start with. Because there are millions and millions of people who claim Irish heritage around the world and secondly, you've got to find a way for them to vote, whether that's electronically or whether we have some kind of way of both (postal and electronic).”